Competition.

The Saints and Stones Group

This year we have chosen the theme of

The Seasons and the Church.

Those of you who have taken part in this competition before, Welcome back and we hope that the theme of this year will spark off more ideas and wonderful work than ever. The seasons of the year in the countryside  as well as in the church are for ever changing and yet as each year passes they remain ever the same. You might like to concentrate on the seasons with in nature or on Church Seasons.you well may want to link them together or to concentrate on a single season with in the church and or the year. All you have to do is to choose. You can use any medium you like .

You might like to:

Write an essay or poem, play or short story about something to do with the changing year or your favourite time of year it might be: Christmas or Easter; Winter or Spring; Whitsun or Summer time.

Draw or paint a picture, illustrate your theme; make a model, photographic record, the film or collage in paper natural objects you have discovered r textiles or sew a picture which is something about your choice of subject.

You can work has a group or on your own.  They will be a small price for each of the seven categories of entry.

Group work entries:

1. Ages 3-7 years

2. Ages 8-11 years

3. Aged 11 years upwards

4. All age groups working on a project together.

Individual entries:

1. Ages 3-7 years

2. Ages 8-11 years

3. Aged 11 years upwards. This may include adults who might be interested in participating.

Each entry should be labelled with the artist's name(s),

• Category group, age (of all or individual)

• Name of church chapel

• Name of group leader and contact details (address and telephone number)

Entries should be sent in by 2nd of June 2008  to:

the coordinators of the Saints and Stones Group

c/o Dolau, Dwrbach,

Fishguard,

SA65 9RN.

telephone 01348 873316.

Judging will take place during  June, and all prize winners will be notified by the end of June.  Every entrant

will receive a certificate and it is anticipated that there will be an  exhibition of entries during the summer:

Suggestions which may come in useful for group leaders:

1. You may find useful to encourage your entrants to have certain object in mind when putting their work together. The level

will be age related. they may want to:

• Concentrate on the natural world

• They may want to use natural objects: leaves preserved in glycerine, pressed flowers, or petals embedded in clay or acrylic or

shells and pebbles from the beach, any objet trouves to build up a picture or sculpture

• Concentrate on the seasons of the church and it's festivals  and the cycle of worship through the year

• Bring the two together at different levels: showing perhaps how the new life at Easter reflects the spring time or even - at a

sophisticated level - by relating the Christian and  natural seasons to the festivals of pre-Christian societies

• Written work is given just as much consideration as visual media and may be submitted as a group or as an individual entry

• Use any idea coming from the group, however whacky

2. An entrants interest were very much  depend on the age and experience and what triggers their  imagination.  We very much hope that

the broad scope of the  theme will stimulate an original response.

3.  We look forward to seeing lots of entries this year. We wish every one the best of luck and most importantly to have fun with the subject

and the work you do with it.

2008 Pilgrimage

Friday 15th August - 

  Nearly 1,500 years ago the first Christian Pilgrims came up the western sea routes, which lead from Mediterranean Europe through Brittany and Cornwall to Pembrokeshire and Ireland.  Many of these early saints, usually scions of the princely families of Brittany, Ireland and Wales, had frequently travelled far and wide, to Rome or Jerusalem in their search for spiritual fulfilment before settling in north Pembrokeshire to establish religious houses and mission stations within the context of the social structure of west Wales in the 6th century.

Men like St David, St Brynach, St Justininan, St Colman, St Hywel, St Gwyndaf and St Teilo and even,  for a brief stay St Patric, arrived in Pembrokeshire.  Those who stayed founded communities as Clas churches, gathering around themselves disciples and converts to the Christian church.  These converts proclaimed their new allegiance in memorial stones found throughout north Pembrokeshire and dated from the 5th to the 10th centuries.  Each one is inscribed in Latin and, or, in Ogham scripts and often with the sign of the cross, which is found in many local forms.

Even in their own day these saints were revered and admired for their devotion and energetic promulgation of their faith and, over time, their actions from childhood became credited with miraculous powers to control Man, the animal world, the elements and the Devil.  The story of their lives were so much part of the religious heritage of the early church that when they came to be written down during the 11th and subsequent centuries the saintly exploits appear as fresh in the minds of the authors as though they had been witnesses of the events.

There is some architectural and archaeological evidence that most of the churches dedicated to these 6th century saints were built prior to the Cymru-Norman settlement of Pembrokeshire.  They are small, sunk into the land from which they are a part and breathtakingly simple, inviting peace and contemplation.  Many are surrounded by circular enclosures, which themselves may belong to a prehistoric settlement of the region.  Over the centuries they have at different times fallen into decay, been rebuilt and modified but this has been a reflection of changing times and social need.

The Saints and Stones trails have been set up to give both holiday visitors and residents in the county access to the deep spiritual qualities of these ancient places of worship, access to some of its more remote and beautiful corners and thereby to bring some small tourist trade to benefit the rural communities.